A new study has given people another good reason to lose all that extra weight by finding that fat in the stomach may cause vitamin C to promote the formation of certain cancer causing chemicals rather than preventing it.
As a part of their study the researchers set out to find the impact of fat and lipid) and vitamin C (ascorbic acid) on nitrite chemistry in the upper (proximal) stomach.
The upper stomach is especially vulnerable to pre-cancerous changes and tumour growth.
The researchers replicated the chemical conditions of the proximal stomach and measured the formation of nitrosamines, oxygen, and nitric oxide.
Nitrosamines are cancer causing compounds formed in acidic conditions, such as those afforded by stomach acid.
In most circumstances, vitamin C inhibits the formation of nitrosamines by converting nitrite to nitric oxide.
However, the study showed that adding ten percent fat had vitamin C boosting the production of nitrosamines between 8 and 140-fold.
The findings may be relevant to the recent observations that vitamin C supplements fail to reduce cancer risk.